The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08 eBook

Those kindly feelings often ran away with him and
enabled him to bring happiness to his friends where
more cautious people would have been helpless.
It was he who unraveled the mystery which had cast
a shadow over the good name of Hawermann, and who
at the proper moment called Frank von Rambow home
from Paris. When Hawermann had received the news
that he was cleared, and Mrs. Behrens wished to go
to him at once, uncle Braesig drew her gently back
to the sofa and said: “Not quite yet, Mrs.
Behrens. You see, I think that Hawermann wants
to have a little quiet time to tell God all about
it, and that Louisa is helping him. It’s
enough for her to be there, for as you know our God
is a jealous God, and doesn’t suffer people
to meddle, when he is speaking to a soul that is filled
with gratitude to Him.” Little Mrs. Behrens
gazed at him in speechless amazement. At last
she murmured: “Oh, Braesig, I’ve always
looked upon you as a heathen, and now I see that you’re
a Christian.” “I know nothing about
that, Mrs. Behrens. I’m sure of this, however,
that what little I’ve been able to do in this
matter has been done as an assessor and not as a Christian.”
Uncle Braesig, you must know, had recently been appointed
an assessor to the Rahnstaedt court, and he was as
proud of his new title as he had been of that of “farm-bailiff”
before.

As the years advanced, his friends prospered, while
Pomuchelskopp, whom the Guerlitz laborers had badly
treated in the revolution of 1848, sold his estates
and moved away. Uncle Braesig went about visiting
his friends, and on one such visit had an attack of
gout that would have been of little consequence, but
which seized both legs and then mounted into his stomach,
because of a chill he got on his journey home.
And that caused his death. Mrs. Behrens, Mrs.
Nuessler, and his old friend Charles Hawermann came
round his bed. He held Mrs. Nuessler’s hand
tight all the while. Suddenly he raised himself
and said: “Mrs. Nuessler, please put your
hand on my head; I have always loved you. Charles
Hawermann, will you rub my legs, they’re so
cold.” Hawermann did as he was asked, and
Braesig said, very slowly with one of his old smiles:
“In style I was always better than you.”
That was all.]

ADALBERT STIFTER

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ROCK CRYSTAL[10] (1846)

TRANSLATED BY LEE M. HOLLANDER, PH.D.

Among the high mountains of our fatherland there lies
a little village with a small but very pointed church-tower
which emerges with red shingles from the green of
many fruit-trees, and by reason of its red color is
to be seen far and away amid the misty bluish distances
of the mountains. The village lies right in the
centre of a rather broad valley which has about the
shape of a longish circle. Besides the church
it contains a school, a townhall, and several other
houses of no mean appearance, which form a square